(WHTM) – For the third time since the 1940s Pennsylvania will have two Democrat U.S. Senators as John Fetterman prepares to join Bob Casey in Washington D.C.
Fetterman beat Republican Mehmet Oz by more than 200,000 votes in the Nov. 8 primary, something Casey says he believed would happen.
“I always believed John Fetterman could will the race and would the race, but I didn’t think it’d be by three or four points.”
Now with two Democrats representing the Keystone State, Casey says they’ll prioritize Pennsylvania communities, workers, seniors, and children.
“If we didn’t pass the American Rescue Plan we would’ve had tens of thousands of layoffs in Pennsylvania. We didn’t have that.”
Casey says Pennsylvania’s surplus is because of the rescue bill. But the nation has a huge deficit that Republicans pin on Joe Biden and the Democrats. Casey has another theory.
“You have a tax code which has been rigged by politicians and lobbyists for 40 years to reward the top and to reward big corporations.”
Casey and Fetterman want to do more of what they call ‘investments’ in people, childcare, and schools. But how will they pay for that?
“We should be taxing big oil companies, taking their excess profits and sending it to Pennsylvania families to reduce their gas prices. Republicans don’t support that,” says Casey.
Retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey certainly does not support that plan, but Casey says he and Toomey worked together when they could, most notably on the courts.
“We’ve confirmed together, vetted, nominated, and confirmed more federal judges in a split Democrat-Republican state delegation than any senators in the whole country.”
“We showed mutual respect for each other and I appreciated working with Pat on a lot of things.”
The last time Pennsylvania elected two Democrats to the Senate was in 1945. In 2009 Arlen Specter changed his party affiliation to Democrat before he retired in 2011.
Fetterman will be sworn in on January 3, 2023.
